slow creativity

This morning I was listening to ABC 702 radio here in Sydney. One of my favourite segments is Richard Fydler’s Conversations. Most of Richard’s guests are extremely interesting – or maybe I just find people in general interesting!

This morning he was talking to an artist named Cressida Campbell. Cressida creates very laborious and painstaking artworks using watercolours and woodblocks.

Richard posed the theory that artists such as Jackson Pollock who create abstract art don’t seem to be very happy, perhaps because they create their artworks so quickly. He wondered whether there is something about works that are painstaking and laborious to make that means that their creators are more happy.

For me, the slowness of embroidery is part of the attraction to doing it. It requires time and thought. It requires me to slow down. It allows me to think things through, and even to ponder other things. I find embroidery to be a very meditative process.

Several years ago I enjoyed reading Carl Honore’s book “In Praise of Slow”. I love this book. I try to re-read it periodically to remind me that life it generally too fast and that we need to slow down. This is one of the benefits I get from embroidery. It is slow creativity.

To put it in another way:
“Take time to stop and smell the roses.”